TERRITORY, NETWORKING AND REGIONAL POLICIES: REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES OF THE POST-TRANSITION EU MEMBER STATES

Abstract

RDAs - regional development agencies have a long development path in Europe since the early 1960s until today. RDAs are directed to the regions of the countries that implement it, but it also applies to the national level as well as to the level of the EU (which comes to the fore with the country's accession to full membership). In addition to the significant differences in the level of development of the regions of the EU Member States, there are also significant differences in the development of the regions of 11 post-transition EU Member States (Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Croatia). Because they all belonged to the former "socialist bloc of countries" and broke their state alliances with the former states in the early 1990s, as well as because they did not have the same historical circumstances or the same timing for joining the EU, all this had and still has an important role on the uneven development of their regions. But, RDAs do not play the same role and importance in all post-transition countries, which reflects the specificity of their regional development management systems and makes it necessary to examine the role and importance of RDAs' work. This paper will analyze: 1) the role and development of RDAs in post-transition EU member states, and 2) the institutional framework of RDAs with an attempt to find innovative transformations of the role of RDAs that respect the framework of EU regional policies.